HARVARD HIGH’S FOREIGN LEGION : Players From Diverse Ethnic Backgrounds Form Alliance On and Off Football Field to Help Saracens Build a Winning Team

Iheanyi Uwaezuoke was born in Nigeria, Juancho Ramirez in the Philippines.

Jeff Oh is from Tokyo, Sam Cooper hails from London and Young Chang, Gene Kim, John Lee and Jung Yi all were born in Seoul.

So, guess which member of the Harvard High football team did not know a screen pass from a screen door when he buckled his first chin strap this summer? Need a clue? He bolted 30 yards in his first carry against Beverly Hills in the season’s second game and finished with 147 yards rushing and 2 touchdowns.

The answer is none of the above. That performance was executed by senior tailback Jeremy Schweitzer, who was born in Washington, D. C., home of such American institutions as the White House, government scandals and the Super Bowl champion Redskins. Yet to Schweitzer, who lived in Oxford, England, for a year where he excelled at rugby and soccer, a hike was something you took up a mountain, not on a field.

“I think he knew what the general idea was,” Harvard Coach Gary Thran said. “He just didn’t have all the details worked out.”

Neither had reserve defensive lineman Yury Goncharenko, who came to the United States from the Soviet Union when he was 7. Goncharenko probably thought a red dog was a covert operation by the KGB. But that did not discourage him from donning a helmet and shoulder pads for the first time this summer.

Although Goncharenko and Schweitzer are new to football, most of the players in Harvard’s gridiron melting pot are as American as Monday Night Football. Nearly all of the 10 players from 6 foreign countries came to the United States as toddlers and grew up with the game.

Uwaezuoke (pronounced oo-WAY-zo-kay), the son of an accountant, came to the United States when he was 7 and learned football by watching television.

Goncharenko, whose family was placed on an 8-year waiting list before being allowed to leave the Soviet Union, had played basketball and soccer but never football before this season.

“I always wanted to learn how to play,” said Goncharenko, a 6-foot, 190-pound junior. “But I still do things wrong.”

Harvard’s cultural collaboration, however, has provided more than a learning experience. It is a major reason, Thran said, for the Saracens’ surprising success.

Despite injuries to 15 players, including starting tailback Marty Holly and quarterback Scott Collins, the Saracens have rallied to a 4-1 record entering Friday’s San Fernando Valley League opener against Notre Dame.

And despite injuries to 6 running backs, Harvard has rushed for 920 yards, third best in the Valley area. Kim, who replaced Collins, has passed for only 168 yards, but his 50-yard touchdown run Friday lifted Harvard to a 7-6 win over Agoura.

Uwaezuoke, a speedy sophomore wide receiver, has 4 receptions for 61 yards and also has rushed for 34 yards. Yi has hauled in 5 passes and Cooper, the kicker, is the team’s leading scorer with 13 points.

The field leader is Chang, a starting defensive tackle. “We’ve kind of got a Korean thing going here,” he said, jokingly. “We could have an all-Korean team. Stick a Korean guy at every position.”

Said Thran: “These players have gone out of their way to make themselves close on and off the field. It’s the kind of thing we could see building little by little. And it’s made them a better football team.”

But equally important to a group of teen-agers is a sense of belonging. At Harvard, an all-boys private school of 820 students, athletics makes life “socially bearable,” according to Schweitzer.

Academics has the highest priority at Harvard, where the annual tuition is $7,000. Of the school’s 123 graduating seniors last June, 41 were offered admission to Ivy League colleges, including 5 to--you guessed it--Harvard. The stereotypical athlete, who can lift a ton but can’t spell it, does not exist at this North Hollywood campus.

“These kids are unbelievably bright,” Thran said. “I can’t believe what an easy job we have of teaching them as far as assignments and what to do and where to go. Once you’ve said it, you know it’s going to be retained.”

Said Schweitzer, who has applied to Brown, Harvard, Princeton and Yale: “What I admire at Harvard is the academics. But the athletics are there, too.”

Harvard’s athletics program also is a cultural mix. In addition to football, baseball, basketball and track, the school offers soccer, ice hockey, rugby, lacrosse, water polo, fencing and jujitsu. The ambitious student can sign up to be kicked, dunked, stabbed and flipped on his back. Many do.

“An incredible number of kids go out for sports here,” said Steve Shaw, Harvard’s assistant water polo coach who also serves as the school’s publicity director. “It’s sort of an unwritten law that everyone goes out for sports. I looked out there today and at one time there were three football teams, lacrosse and soccer practice all going on at once.”

Since its founding in Los Angeles in 1900--the campus was moved to North Hollywood in 1935--Harvard has produced few successful athletes. Most notable are former UCLA quarterback-turned-actor Mark Harmon and former Dodger first baseman Wes Parker. Bob Scanlan, a 1984 graduate, is currently pitching in the Philadelphia Phillies’ organization at the double-A level.

“Athletics have never been the main attraction here,” said Thran, the school’s athletic director. “The main attraction is all the school has to offer academically.”

For Harvard’s players, football, seemingly, is the only distraction from studies.

“School is such a high priority,” Uwaezuoke said, “you don’t have time to worry about other things. There just aren’t that many cliques. And cliques can lead to all kinds of bad things.”

The only clique, it seems, is the team.

“A lot of the kids just come out to be on the team,” Thran said. “They see friends out there and they want to be a part of something. That’s what lured Jeremy into playing.”

Schweitzer’s football career, however, ended almost as quickly as it began. In Harvard’s third game, against Hoover, he suffered a dislocated hip and has been lost for the season.

“Oh, well,” he said. “It didn’t work out as well as I would have liked. But I’m still glad I joined the football team. I had never experienced the camaraderie or the team spirit that football brings.

“Especially with this team and all this ethnicity.”

Ethnicity? Would the word ever arise in a conversation with a high school student from anywhere but Harvard?